<p>Was it difficult to make friends in the beginning? How did you find your social niche/group of friends? Also: what is probably the most lively dorm on south campus (as in, the best for parties and meeting lots of different people)?</p>
<p>how hard is it to pull a 3.5+ as an econ major? i'm not too stellar at math.
Also, i am not one of those naturally gifted smart people. I had to work like a dog in hs to get the grades i did. i'm just scared that i'll be in over my head.</p>
<p>You answered most of my academic questions (plan on being an econ major in the fall if I go to NU). So, sorry if this isn't academic, but what about the partying/drinking scene on campus?</p>
<p>"elsijfdl, how good are the biology, philosophy, and spanish departments? I'm thinking about majoring in Bio and minor in spanish along with possibly another major. How hard the classes in those departments?"</p>
<p>eternity1115,</p>
<p>I really have no idea. Northwestern is a top school, they have something like an 80%+ med school acceptance rate, their bio program can not be that bad.</p>
<p>I don't know anything about philosophy, I have only taken one philosophy course at NU, like i said, any program at northwestern is going to be good, although i do get the impression from some people that philosophy courses here are hard.</p>
<p>I'm only taking elementary spanish but i would say it is not very hard, material moves quickly however.</p>
<p>"Was it difficult to make friends in the beginning? How did you find your social niche/group of friends? Also: what is probably the most lively dorm on south campus (as in, the best for parties and meeting lots of different people)?"</p>
<p>Olam36,</p>
<p>I am a transfer student, i lived in the transfer house when i came to campus, which in hindsight was not a very good move (you can imagine the kind of people who would live in the transfer house: testy, irritable, unwilling to put up with things that bother them being as that they are transfers) I met a lot more people through the greek system, but as a freshman if you live in a bigger, more active dorm you will not have a hard time meeting people at all.</p>
<p>The better dorms on south campus (in terms of size, activity, etc.) to live in are Allison or Foster-Walker. Hinman is also decent. Dorms on south campus tend to be more antisocial in general than dorms on north campus, but those three are the least suffering: kids definitely still party there.</p>
<p>If you are really interested in partying a lot or joining a fraternity i would strongly suggest you live on north campus, however if greek life isn't your thing and you prefer to drink but you'd rather it was with a few close friends and not all the time, south campus is not a bad way to go.</p>
<p>Also, I can not emphasize this enough, to anyone who really wants to get to northwestern and immediately jump into everything that is going on socially, do your very best to get an ID over the summer. Almost every night, even nights that begin with fraternity parties, end up at bars.</p>
<p>"how hard is it to pull a 3.5+ as an econ major? i'm not too stellar at math.
Also, i am not one of those naturally gifted smart people. I had to work like a dog in hs to get the grades i did. i'm just scared that i'll be in over my head."</p>
<p>GoIrish8310,</p>
<p>Well, that's a very objective question for me to answer, heh, not to scare you, but i would say the economics department here is rather difficult, although i never got to 300 level classes, which is apparently where they get a little easier.</p>
<p>What i would definitely say though, is that the econ classes are not really conceptually that complicated (it at times may seem to be when the teacher is presenting the material, but when you go back and look at it, it is just all formulas and you just really have to know what to plug-in where), but rather your grade is more of a direct product of how much time you spend looking at the material, so if you're a hard-worker i would say you are in pretty good shape.</p>
<p>"You answered most of my academic questions (plan on being an econ major in the fall if I go to NU). So, sorry if this isn't academic, but what about the partying/drinking scene on campus?"</p>
<p>rooney,</p>
<p>I'm just going to copy a private message that i sent to someone who expressed concern about the social life at northwestern:</p>
<p>your social life at northwestern is totally contingent on the choices you make here. For some, northwestern is a HUGE party school, for others, watching a movie with four people in a room constitutes a night out.</p>
<p>If you like to drink/socialize a lot, i would HIGHLY recommend living on north campus, preferably bobb-mcculloch or elder hall. The reason for this is most of the people in those dorms are the ones who join the fraternities that do the most partying, and those who decide not to join fraternities still like to go out with each other.</p>
<p>If you want to ensure that you have something to do almost every night of the week i would highly recommend joining a fraternity, a lot of people are reluctant to tell you this but the main fraternities to look at would be lodge (chi psi), delt (delta tau delta), and sig-ep (sigma phi epsilon). The reputation of these fraternities, vaguely and generally are - lodge: rich, preppy, party a lot, delt: sporty, macho, throw "typical" frat parties (with ice-luges, strip-drinking, etc.), and sig-ep: up-and-coming, clean-cut, nice guys.</p>
<p>If this sounds like the kind of thing you would be into i highly recommend rushing at these three fraternities specifically and seeing which one you like the best/which one is the best fit for you. Most of the sororities do events exclusively with fraternities, namely these three, so that is the best way to meet a large amount of people, instead of just a group of five or six guys/girls from your floor.</p>
<p>with that being said, living on south campus, while it's still possible to rush from there (if that's what you decide to do), will make it a little harder, as you most likely won't have a large group of friends from your floor constantly going to the fraternities/going out, so it makes rushing more difficult. People on south campus tend to be quieter, less into drinking/going out/etc.</p>
<p>Ok i'll cut off the message there, but more generally, my understanding of the social scene at northwestern is like this:</p>
<p>people who decide to go greek, mainly at those three places, will party the most, with the largest amount of people, all the time</p>
<p>people who decide to go greek, but at some of the more tame places, will party the second most, with a large amount of people, more of the time</p>
<p>people who decide not to go greek but like to go out will hang out primarily with people from their floor/people they meet in class, will spend most of their time with that smaller, close-knit group of people, and will still go out but on a smaller scale, and their nights will be more sporadic, although they will probably engage in a wider variety of things (e.g. make more trips to the city) than just "frat party" "bar"</p>
<p>people who live in some of the halls with very antisocial reputations (any of the res colleges) will probably have a harder time finding people to go out (and party, whatever) with all the time, will spend more time in their dorm, just hanging out in the rooms, watching movies, doing sober things in evanston, on campus, etc.</p>
<p>It all depends on your personal tastes but those are kind of the four ways of assimilating at northwestern.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if you would be the one to ask this question, but does northwestern care about demonstrated interest in the university? If so, to what degree?</p>
<p>I dunno, but I had almost 0 contact with the school at all- I'm not even sure I requested information. I'm going in the fall.</p>
<p>so you're saying res colleges arent very social places?</p>
<p>^ I think it really depends which one. People have been telling me Willard and ACCI are great. Whereas somewhere like Slivka (where I stayed during Preview NU) would be much more quiet. But even they had their little gatherings like munchies and watching House every week.</p>
<p>How difficult is it to get your top choices in housing? Are their certain houses that are more difficult to get because they are more popular? Do most people end up with one of their top three choices?</p>
<p>"I'm not sure if you would be the one to ask this question, but does northwestern care about demonstrated interest in the university? If so, to what degree?"</p>
<p>aquamarinee,</p>
<p>if you look at their common data set here:
<a href="http://ugadm.northwestern.edu/commondata/2005-06/c.htm%5B/url%5D">http://ugadm.northwestern.edu/commondata/2005-06/c.htm</a></p>
<p>it says "level of applicant's interest" is "considered"</p>
<p>when i applied i sent a lot of supplemental material, filled out a visit card, emailed admissions officers, etc.</p>
<p>"so you're saying res colleges arent very social places?"</p>
<p>andrew_vb,</p>
<p>not if you are into drinking/going out a lot, etc. I'm sure people socialize inside of them, but the point of a res college is really a common interest in your area of study, area of extracurricular interest, etc. rather than the greater social scene.</p>
<p>"^ I think it really depends which one. People have been telling me Willard and ACCI are great. Whereas somewhere like Slivka (where I stayed during Preview NU) would be much more quiet. But even they had their little gatherings like munchies and watching House every week."</p>
<p>yeah, i'm not saying they don't do this, i'm saying people from those dorms typically aren't going to be the ones you want to live with if you have an interest in going out to bars a lot, drinking, going to fraternity parties, etc.</p>
<p>Consider it this way... Which would you of these following activity sets do see yourself enjoying more?
Drinking in your dorm room, and then going to a bar, rushing a greek organization, heading to a nearby frat party (North campus non rescolleges)</p>
<p>Playing videogames, watching TV, going to bed at a reasonable hour, having all-dorm events like formals. (Res colleges)</p>
<p>I am in the latter situation after previously being placed in the former situation (Bobb-McCulloch) where I moved out of, but for reasons more related to my roommate than the social scene. I must say the condition of the dorm, and the destructive stupidity of people on my floor put a damper on my experience there (literally a damper when some people thought it would be fun to rip the shower heads off, clog the sinks and then leave them running overnight so that the water flooded the entire hallway)</p>
<p>Some people like each.</p>
<p>"How difficult is it to get your top choices in housing? Are their certain houses that are more difficult to get because they are more popular? Do most people end up with one of their top three choices?"</p>
<p>dcb07</p>
<p>it should not be very difficult to get your top choice housing, there are definitely dorms that fill up sooner, but i haven't really ever heard (besides from transfer students) of someone not getting their first, and definitely their second, choice housing.</p>
<p>The most popular dorms apparently are kemper (because it's so nice, and it's a popular place to live if you stay on campus past freshman year, so you would be in the lottery with lots of upperclassmen... you don't want to live there as a freshman anyway) and bobb-mcculloch (it helps that bobb-mcculloch is a really big dorm, but it is a popular one because it is the most "fun" dorm on campus, stereotypically the most social)</p>
<p>there are definitely less popular dorms that will almost always have spaces available, which i would also not recommend living in unless you have a specific interest in the qualities of that dorm, dorms on north campus that i would put on this list are lindgren and foster house.</p>
<p>Lindgren is just not a very fun dorm, and foster house is all-male singles. Both are pretty mundane places to live in my opinion, a more fun dorm or a res college would, i think, be better.</p>
<p>but back to the initial question, your best bet is just to apply early for housing: you should not have trouble getting one of your top choices.</p>
<p>Thanks for your answer about the social life, that helps soothe one of my larger concerns about college. In terms of dorms, I want a social dorm, and you have mentioned that Bobb is good in that respect. What is your experience with Elder? I hear that too is a social dorm.</p>
<p>"What is your experience with Elder? I hear that too is a social dorm."</p>
<p>rooney,</p>
<p>if you read closely elder is the other north campus dorm i mentioned besides bobb; it's a little smaller, and negligibly further from class, but generally the same atmosphere. </p>
<p>It doesn't have as much of a "brand name" as a fun dorm as bobb does, but it is definitely a social place. The CAs in elder will be similarly as lenient as the CAs in bobb: it's really an either/or situation. </p>
<p>If this dorm setting is the kind of thing you want, put both bobb and elder down as #1 and #2 choices: you can't go wrong with either one.</p>
<p>sorry, i missed the part about elder in your earlier post. I think I will put those two as my first choices, thanks.</p>